Egg Freckles

May 2020

• AirMessage

  I made the switch from an iPhone 7 to Android last month. Not for a particular handset, but features like a headphone jack, expandable storage, USB Type-C, and a 128 GBs of storage Apple does not make available on a iPhone; let alone a phone that costs under $229. I am not an iOS power user. I don’t use Apple services like iCloud, Photos, Apple Music, or Shortcuts. Many of the third-party services I do use, like Slack, Outlook, Nike+, Instapaper, Foobar2000, and Brave offer native Android apps that are just as good if not better than their iOS equivalents. While Twitter, Reddit, RSS feeds, podcasts, and weather are available on Android, I will always miss the polish of my favorite third-party iOS apps; Twitterrific, Apollo, Unread, Castro, and Dark Sky. There is however one Apple service I thought I would have to leave behind after making the switch to Android. Like many of you, I have been using iMessage — Apple’s blue bubble messaging service — since it debuted in October, 2011. I…

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April 2020

• OutRun

  I first heard about OutRun from Bradley Chambers, writing for 9to5Mac. OutRun is exactly what you’d want from a simple iPhone run tracker. It fits in nicely with a great iOS 13 design, is 100% private, and syncs with Apple Health. The syncing with Apple Health is optional as well. Settings wise, you can change your energy unit, weight unit, GPS accuracy settings, create data backups, and enable syncing. There is no friends list, ads to dismiss, or subscriptions to sign up for bonus features. It has one simple goal, and that is to track your runs. I have run with a dedicated GPS watch in the past, but these days I only take my iPhone with me on most workouts. Apple offers a great running app for Apple Watch, but when it comes to iPhone-only runners like myself we are forced to download third-party apps that come with their own accounts, privacy policies, advertisements, and social networks. I don't want any of that stuff when I run, and I don't want to pay $199 for an Apple Watch and…

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March 2020

• 2020 MacBook Air

  Last week Apple announced a new MacBook Air and not only is it good — for most people it’s the Mac to get. The new 2020 MacBook Air costs less, comes with twice the storage, more performance, all while ditching the unreliable butterfly keyboard. If I was buying a 2020 MacBook Air today, this is the configuration I would get. Processor Unless you are only using your MacBook Air for web browsing and word processing, get the Intel Core i5 processor upgrade. Not only do you get double the cores, but a faster 3.5 GHz Turbo Boost for only $100 more. I wouldn’t bother with the Intel Core i7 processor upgrade for another $150. If you need more performance than an Intel Core i5 you shouldn’t be buying a MacBook Air. Memory I have been using a 2018 MacBook Air with 8 GBs of RAM for a little over a year and never suffered from a lack of memory. I don’t use my MacBook Air for video editing, virtualization, or 3D graphics. If you do maybe 16 GBs of RAM makes sense, but at an additional $200 I’ll…

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• 2020 MacBook Air

  I bought a Gold MacBook Air for $999 in 2018. Everything about it was good, even the keyboard. (I never had a problem, but your results may vary.) Last week Apple announced a new MacBook Air and not only is it good — for most people it's the Mac to get. The new 2020 MacBook Air costs less, comes with twice the storage, more performance, all while ditching the unreliable butterfly keyboard. If I was buying a 2020 MacBook Air today, this is the configuration I would get. Processor Unless you are only using your MacBook Air for web browsing and word processing, get the Intel Core i5 processor upgrade. Not only do you get double the cores, but a faster 3.5 GHz Turbo Boost for only $100 more. I wouldn't bother with the Intel Core i7 processor upgrade for another $150. If you need more performance than an Intel Core i5 you shouldn't be buying a MacBook Air. Memory I have been using a 2018 MacBook Air with 8 GBs of RAM for a little over a year and never suffered from a lack of memory. I…

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February 2020

• Sideload to Castro

  I have been a regular podcast listener since at least April 17, 2005. Over the last 14 years I have tried a lot of podcast apps. Switching podcatchers has always been easy thanks to the freedom of the open web (RSS) and the transparency of XML (OPML). For the last couple of years I have been using Apple's Podcasts app exclusively, but that all changed when I learned about the latest sideloading features coming to Castro. Castro now lets you send audio from your favorite YouTube videos into your podcast queue! Just browse to the video you want to hear and “Sideload to Castro” using the iOS sharesheet. Once the YouTube audio have been downloaded into the app, you can use all of your favorite Castro features like Trim Silence, Voice Boost and variable playback speed to enhance your listening experience. I listen to a lot of content on YouTube, but I don't always need to watch the video. Sideload to Castro works great with talking head videos, documentaries, or any content I want to…

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January 2020

• 2018 MacBook Air

  I bought a Gold MacBook Air for $999 in 2018. I've owned it for a little over a year. Because my MacBook Air is not my only computer I picked portability and price over performance. If my MacBook Air was my only computer I would have chosen a more powerful MacBook Pro. I did not consider an iPad. The only aspects of an iPad that interest me are its integrated LTE, and a long lasting battery life. As a systems administrator iOS's App Store puts restrictions on the kind of applications I need to get my work done. If you are looking for a low-cost Apple portable with all of the possibilities of a Macintosh, and none of the compromises of iOS, the MacBook Air is the one to get. Here are a couple of my thoughts and recommendations if a new MacBook Air is in your future. $1,299 is too much Do not pay $1,299.00 for a new 2019 MacBook Air with 256 GB of storage. There are better offers out there. Buy the 2018 model, they are essentially the same computer. If you have to get a MacBook Air from…

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• YouTube RSS

  I have three New Years Resolutions for 2020, and three habits from 2019 I am not planning to change. This note is the second of three resolutions. Watching Stupid Have you ever visited YouTube in a new browser without logging into Google first? If you have, you probably watched a lot of stupid videos on YouTube. The problem is the algorithm. YouTube's algorithm works by showing you videos you are likely to watch. The algorithm does this by remembering you, which videos you watch, and which videos you skip. Google makes money each time you watch a YouTube video with an embedded ad. The more videos you watch the more money Google makes. But what if the algorithm can't remember you or the kind of videos you like to watch? What if you don't have a Google account and don't want one? What will YouTube show you then? In an effort to keep you watching videos with embedded ads, the algorithm defaults to showing you videos designed to steal your attention. Even if those videos are some of the…

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• New Years Blogging

  I have three New Years Resolutions for 2020, and three habits from 2019 I am not planning to change. This note is the first of three resolutions. Blogging More Often I started Egg Freckles back in 2007 as a way to share my experiences with Apple technology. But as Apple gained market share and brought more features from iOS back to the Mac, I lost interest in Apple's desktop operating system and began experimenting with Windows and Fedora Linux. Egg Freckles lost its way. Over the last few years I made matters worse by deleting old posts, and breaking URLs by switching my CMS half a dozen times. But now that it is 2020 I am back on WordPress, and back on track to post more often from my mobile phone and MarsEdit. I can't correct all of my mistakes from the last decade, but I promise to write more often about everything that interests me without deleting the old stuff. Wish me luck blogging more often in the new year.

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• App Store Editorial

  It is a shame that some of the best and brightest technology journalists to ever cover the Apple beat, have been hired away by their favorite fruit company and reduced to farming cultivated stories from within the high walls of a private orchard. I don’t blame them for following the money, and I certainly don’t blame them for wanting to work behind the curtain of the muse that has fascinated them for so many years. (Given the same opportunity, I too might have surrendered to the mothership.) But because I remain outside the ring, or because I don’t lean on the App Store to deliver my technology news, I will never read any editorial from these virtuosos ever again. Technology reporting and the Open Web as a whole has suffered at Apple’s insistence to lock them away. This post was inspired by this tweet and this link that I can"t open on my Mac. As it turns out it was my fault for running an incompatible two year old version of Apple's Macintosh operating system.

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